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The National Geographic Magazine 



in perpetual dusk. We emerge on an 

 open square, pass a landau covered, as 

 is the Balkan custom, with white linen 

 covers inside ; continue toward the bar- 

 racks and to the market-place, a struct- 

 ure of lattices bisected for stalls, and 

 then reach the heart of the city. We 

 look back and catch sight of the roof- 

 gardens. The tenement-dwellers have 

 the second-story balcony, too, but there 

 are no balconies on floors above, and so 

 they must needs take their airing and 

 their week's washing out upon the roof. 

 There, among the shrubbery, people sit, 

 as do our own fashionable New Yorkers 

 thousands of miles to the westward. 



The street is growing uneven now, 

 owing to the flagstones loosening, and in 

 places a step runs across the way, and we 

 find its elevation changed considerably. 

 Here there are stores of caps and shoes ; 

 there are kavanas, where the Turkish 

 coffee is served in handle-less cups ; and 

 there are other shops presenting but two 

 doors, and not a window to the street, 

 and on their doorsteps the "Jew gera- 

 nium" blossoms, for these folk are inor- 

 dinate in their love for flowers. Up 

 above, the balconies are growing richer 

 now — the posts with the strands of dry- 

 ing onions are replaced by graceful iron- 

 work, but we are still among the trades 

 people of Tirnova. Here is a bake-shop, 

 one wall almost open to the road, showing 

 the whitewashed earthen oven, and the 

 booth with the round, half-brown loaves 

 of bread. Next store is a money-changer, 

 a most necessary factor of Balkan life, 

 where there is the coin of so many coun- 

 tries ever current. Four cents on $1.80 

 is the rate he charges us, and he is most 

 satisfied with his commission. Be^^ond 

 are bazaars with eatables and more with 

 hats and clothings — stores with slippers 

 and costumes — and in all of them the 

 friendly natives, only too glad to let the 

 "Amerikansky" look over their wares, 

 if they may be permitted to stare at him 

 in return. Bulgaria may be a brigand 

 land, and there are parts of the southern 

 frontier where it must be admitted we 

 did not feel anv too safe, but Bulgarian 



people as a whole are among the friend- 

 liest in the world to the stranger within 

 their gates. 



We turn into a road of cobblestones 

 not five feet wide and take to the heights. 

 The lowest story of the houses here is 

 windowless, built of stone and mortar, 

 with heavy wooden doors and heavier 

 iron knockers, and a tiny barred window- 

 let at one side of the entry, to serve as 

 peep-hole before admitting the visitor. 

 It reminds one of Ali Baba and the Forty 

 Thieves, to see the donkey trains stop 

 before these doors, while curious, tur- 

 baned muleteers knock and await admit- 

 tance. Here the upper, slightly pro- 

 truding second story is of plaster over 

 lathwork — white save for a stripe of blue 

 along every corner, or else left the hue 

 of the dried mud that coats the laths, and 

 adorned by Maltese crosses of pine 

 beams. Here and there the lattices be- 

 speak a Turkish harem ; but the Turk 

 has almost evacuated Bulgaria, and his 

 call and his costume are rare. Out of 

 this quarter, and in the next, the windows 

 come still higher up the wall ; the houses 

 face sidewise, as in Roumania, and upon 

 little gardens among the flagstones, and 

 we come out on the tall, tapering fire- 

 tower, the "center" of a Bulgarian town. 



The view from this point and from 

 a slight blufif just behind is one that is 

 incomparable. Not even Naples at sun- 

 down, nor the Georgian Bay, nor the 

 Bocches di Cattaro, can leave such a 

 lasting impression as this ; for they one 

 and all lack the tintings of color that 

 these tiers of homes on either side pre- 

 sent, with the mountain frowning up be- 

 yond and an ancient Turkish mosque, of 

 the sort that old Bethlehem has in the 

 pictures, on the crest of its slope. 



There was a tempting little tavern 

 here, and we dropped in to taste of the 

 native beer and the undried figs that 

 the place afforded ; then we continued the 

 pilgrimage. We had found the East at 

 last, the East of story books. The alley- 

 ways grew ever narrower — in fact, so 

 shrunken that in spots men with the 

 yokes for bearing water barrels on their 



